As i got out of bed today, for one thing i was feeling very lazy... Lazy like why are work days greater than weekends... Can't it be the other way ??? 5 days of off and 2 days of work :-) .. Anyway's, pulled myself out of bed and slowly and steadily got ready to hit office. One the way to work , some kind Samaritan pointed that I was running on a flat tyre. I just pulled over and saw that indeed my rear wheel was flat. Just when I was wondering where do i go looking for a vulcanizing shop... what do i see???? i had pulled my car right next to a vulcanizing shop and the dude there was starring at me... Can I get any luckier...The dude got down to work and only then we realized that the air vent had gone in and he could locate it. So guess what??? we had to induce a puncture and then actually take the tube out and patch it... This is crazy!!! , but at least i got the thing done in less than 30 mins and was on my way back to office.

Some times life does crazy things to you... you just have to pull along...

This book by Chetan Bhagat has all the ingredients of a typical Chetan story. But this time he has taken added pain to direct it to masses.He was worked smart on this one - Cricket, Religion, business and all this in amidst the earthquakes in Gujarat and Godhra incidents.

Chetan is still not a Salman Rushdie or Dan Brown, but his writings are so Indian and are always relatable to the Indian masses. Here is where he scores high. He does make an impact. More over he is our generation writer and tends to use the language that we use, which makes him different. Although the story starts of well, in between it losses its charm only to increase pace in the end. The story has its own share of twists, emotions and plots to keep you glued to the book. Starting with the beautiful bonding of friendship and how the friendship gets translated to a business venture , while maintaining their passion for cricket.

If I had a choice between - The three mistakes of my life and Five Point someone, I still would go with Five point someone. The reason is what the protagonist thinks is a mistake and Chetan standing by that is actually not a mistake and can happen to anyone.

I don't think even Force India can better this?? Is Dr.Mallya listening? We'll i really don;t care if he is or not. All I care is now that I need some new sponsors for the tyre that got worn out in my recent Mysore Trip. I almost hit a constant 150kmph on my old one. The tyre went flat @ that speed and when i pumped up the jack for the replacement,i noticed that the wheels were real HOT :-).

***UPDATE****

Dad is not sponsoring and instead directed me to the insurance guy for sponsorship:-(

I just joined this new company and I am dead sure that i have not given my official id to anyone, but some how my email id is all over town and i am getting more mails for reference than business:-( . I am frustrated with this spam, but coming to the covering letter these people write, i am spell bound and in fact it reduces my stress levels :-) Here are some actual samples....

This is %^%&%^% ..I am completed my MCA in 2007 and looking for a job in software Development Side. I am sending my profile, so plz forward my profile to concern HR Person.

Iam a BE (E&C) Graduate from BLDEA'S COLLEGE OF ENGG &TECH BIJAPUR KARNATAKA. I have good academic standings.

I am attached my resume for referrence. if it satisfies u r needs plz call me at any time.

On Friday, Christian Bale pretended to be Batman, on Sunday he fought with his mom and sisy. He basically spent the weekend acting like me when i was 12 :-) And get to think of it??? Batman - The dark knight has broken records of all sort :-) Yeah, who could break Bale's mom and sisy's neck :-)

Last weekend i had been to Mysore. The place is pretty good, but can get boring especially if you end up being to the same places again and again or you double as a guide. This is exactly what happened to me this weekend.I doubled as a guide for - Karanjee Lake, Nanjangud & The Mysore palace.

Here is what i did

1. Drove @ 150 kmph on my old one, with windows open early in the morning - 6:30 am

2. Change tyres, exert yourself and help the poor boy pump some air.

3. Eat ice cream while its raining

4. Engage in a never before 3 kms walk in the park

5. Act as a guide and bluff your way about History

6. Walk up and down a three storey building like a hero..

7. Drive back to bangalore @ 140 kmph , this time with only a thin tee-shirt on the wee hours - 5.00 am

Result ???? This is rewarding ain' it? Yes and i deserve them all - A full round of VIRAL FEVER with addin's like - body pain, cough, cold, vomiting and eye burning and the icing was shivering.....This means 1 week off from work:-)

I had this fetish and i think i still have - Downloading movies :-) I still remember the time when i used to spend nights searching for good DivX movies. The kick i got from searching, downloading and then archiving never actually translated to watching :-( I always felt i would do it some day ,when i am free preferably with wifey and show off what awesome collection of movies i have. But, like nothing in life is certain esp when you plan ahead, it never happened. And i am now watching the movie collection when wifey is not there. It certainly helps me beat the boredom of being Home Alone.I must admit , the movies downloaded are a class apart and i am enjoying everybit of each movie. Movies seen this week so far - Hitch, Batman Begins,Usual Suspects, Memento, LA Conficential, Next, Jhonny Gaddar and Prestige. All the movies are worth watchin...

7 years in this field of software engineering and sometimes my memories go past the various issues i had run into - I mean the tech issues.

I am collating all the info here for the fresh young ones who start the career. Maybe these posts will help them scale faster and also teach them what NOT to do :-)As you notice, this new layout in my blog has actually helped my cause.. So keep watching the links

*** QA -tips: For all QA and testing related stuff

***Dev-Tips: for all Development efforts across all the technologies i work on....

Tracing an email has become so easy now, that even you can trace any email sent to you , but since they have tied the IP to the lat/longitude on the Google map, its not way correct. But at least you can figure out your ISP and then start the trace from there.

I have give my Blog a face lift... It's nearly 3 years now i am on blogger and was starting to get mundane. And when the image hosting company pulled the plug and i lot all my template images... I thought i will give this a kind of botox... It took me 2 days to resdesign-test and go live ;-)...Comments on its look and feel are welcome...

I was trying to configure gmail for my E51, and was running into some issues. So i got on to my GOD ( aka google) , but somehow this piece of information i did not find them all at the same place. So after a lot of cross blog, cross forum readings i have collated the info not only for others but also for me to look back in futureConnection Settings > Incoming E-MailUser name: Enter your complete Gmail e-mail address including ‘@gmail.com’Password: Enter your PasswordIncoming Mail Server: imap.gmail.comAccess Point in Use: Select the active data connectionMailbox Name: GmailMailbox Type: IMAP4Security (ports): SSL/TLSPort: Default

I think the other details such as User Settings,Retrieval Settings & Automatic Retrieval are fairly simple and you can choose your config.Incase you want to configure Yahoo ( not Plus or Premium) just make the following changes -incoming mail server : imap.mail.yahoo.comoutgoing mail server : smtp.mobile.yahoo.com

And make sure that for email just enter your yahoo user name only (without '@yahoo.com)****UPDATE****

While the gmail setting works perfect, yahoo settings run into trouble. You amy safely download the Yahoo GO( which is slow) or consider installing opera mini , but nothing beats the inbuilt browser of E 51

No matter , how many times i undergo such embarrassing situations, i never learn... I think i should be more circumspect when talking to any one from now on... Here is a nice story which relates what normally happens to me when i try and lecture the GURU's. I am sure this happens to all....

Over a hundred years ago an university student found himself seated in a train by the side of a person who seemed to be well-to do peasant.He was praying the rosary and moving the beads in his fingers."Sir, do you still believe in such outdated things?" asked the studentof the old man.""Yes, I do. Do you not?" asked the man.The student burst out into a laughter and said, "I do not believe in such silly things. Take my advice. Throw the rosary out through this window, and learn what science has to say about it"."Science? I do not understand this science? Perhaps you can explain it to me.", the man said humbly with some tears in his eyes.The student saw that the man was deeply moved. So to avoid further hurting the feelings of the man, he said:"Please give me your address and I will send you some literature to help you on the matter."The man fumbled in the inside pocket of his coat and gave the boy his visiting card. On glancing at the card, the student, lowered his head in shame and became silent. On the card he read:"Louis Pasteur, Director of the Institute of Scientific Research, Paris."